Many post-delivery women suffer from urinary incontinence. This may be aggravated by stressful maneuvers such as coughing, sneezing or any event that increases intra-abdominal pressure. This pressure is transmitted to the bladder, which in the event of inadequate sphincter continuity, results in urinary incontinence. Besides anatomical disorders, any compromise in the nerve supply to the bladder or bladder sphincters will also frequently lead to urinary incontinence. Also, other less common disease states contribute to the overall problem.
Current clinical approaches to cope with the problem in women includes diapers, sanitary napkins, and of course, the indwelling catheter which is usually shunned for multiple reasons. Actually, there is no satisfactory available approach to this embarrassing female inconvenience.
A particularly acute and costly problem exists in patient care for elderly patients in nursing homes and the like. Many elderly women who are confined to nursing home also suffer from urinary incontinence, and since they frequently spend a good deal of time reclining or sitting, gravity-assisted collection devices are of less value. Adult diapers have become the major patient care appliance, and are used in great numbers and accordingly frequently present a correspondingly great disposal problem.